Home/ Threat Actors/ Leviathan

🌐Leviathan

🌐 Leviathan is a tracked threat actor in the Clankerusecase corpus. ??-aligned. Primary motivation: State. We map 14 detection use cases to this actor across 50 MITRE ATT&CK techniques, with 0 threat-intel articles citing them.

View full actor card → All threat actors MITRE ATT&CK group spec (G0065) ↗

14Use cases

0Articles

50Techniques

0IOCs

About this actor (MITRE)

[Leviathan](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0065) is a Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage group that has been attributed to the Ministry of State Security's (MSS) Hainan State Security Department and an affiliated front company.(Citation: CISA AA21-200A APT40 July 2021) Active since at least 2009, [Leviathan](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0065) has targeted the following sectors: academia, aerospace/aviation, biomedical, defense industrial base, government, healthcare, manufacturing, maritime, and transportation across the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast

Known aliases

LeviathanMUDCARPKryptonite PandaGadoliniumBRONZE MOHAWKTEMP.JumperAPT40TEMP.PeriscopeGingham Typhoon

Top techniques

T1003 · OS Credential Dumping T1003.001 · LSASS Memory T1021.001 · Remote Desktop Protocol

All other tracked techniques

T1021.004 · SSH T1027.001 · Binary Padding T1027.003 · Steganography T1027.013 · Encrypted/Encoded File T1027.015 · Compression T1041 · Exfiltration Over C2 Channel T1047 · Windows Management Instrumentation T1055.001 · Dynamic-link Library Injection T1059.001 · PowerShell T1059.005 · Visual Basic T1074.001 · Local Data Staging T1074.002 · Remote Data Staging T1078 · Valid Accounts T1090.003 · Multi-hop Proxy T1102.003 · One-Way Communication T1105 · Ingress Tool Transfer T1133 · External Remote Services T1140 · Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information T1189 · Drive-by Compromise T1190 · Exploit Public-Facing Application T1197 · BITS Jobs T1203 · Exploitation for Client Execution T1204.001 · Malicious Link T1204.002 · Malicious File T1218.010 · Regsvr32 T1505.003 · Web Shell T1534 · Internal Spearphishing T1546.003 · Windows Management Instrumentation Event Subscription T1547.001 · Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder T1547.009 · Shortcut Modification T1553.002 · Code Signing T1559.002 · Dynamic Data Exchange T1560 · Archive Collected Data T1566.001 · Spearphishing Attachment T1566.002 · Spearphishing Link T1567.002 · Exfiltration to Cloud Storage T1572 · Protocol Tunneling T1583.001 · Domains T1584.004 · Server T1584.008 · Network Devices T1585.001 · Social Media Accounts T1585.002 · Email Accounts T1586.001 · Social Media Accounts T1586.002 · Email Accounts T1587.004 · Exploits T1589.001 · Credentials T1595.002 · Vulnerability Scanning

Detection use cases (14)

APT40 (Leviathan/MUDCARP) web-shell follow-on recon from IIS/Exchange/Tomcat worker processes AI · profile SΣ APT40 LSASS credential theft via ProcDump / comsvcs.dll MiniDump after edge-appliance compromise AI · profile SΣ 1Password activity from Tor exit node MITRE match 1Password impossible-travel sign-in MITRE match Auth-Bypass on Public-Facing Service → Post-Exploit Action on Same Host (≤10 min) MITRE match Brand-Impersonation Domain Fetch Followed by User-Context Loader Within 10 Minutes MITRE match Cross-category credential-store enumeration with rapid egress to anonymizing tunnel/CDN MITRE match Cross-Platform ClickFix Paste-to-Pipe Loader (UI-Parent Shell with Decode-and-Execute Payload) MITRE match Developer package install spawning script-host with non-registry C2 within 5 minutes MITRE match Edge-service post-exploitation chain: internet-facing daemon → child shell or token redemption within 10 min of external request MITRE match Internet-Facing Service Process Spawning Unix Shell or Ingress-Tool LOLBin (Edge Zero-Day Post-Exploit) MITRE match Internet-facing service process spawns shell/LOLBin within minutes of public inbound connection — post-RCE command execution MITRE match Low-Code / AI Workflow Runtime Sandbox-Escape — Server Process Spawns Shell + Public Egress MITRE match Non-Browser Process Reads Browser Credential / Cookie SQLite Then Egresses to Public Destination Within 10 Minutes MITRE match